UKRAINE - People are deceived by the U.S. / EU - Nazis and fascists in control of government, formed by US and EU. - In this blog, I will provide the information that the Western press is not willing to give. The purpose is to open the eyes of the Norwegian, European and Ukrainian people about what actually happens in Ukraine, and who’s behind. Some text is mine, but also from friends or I borrow/ bring in from other media

søndag 11. desember 2016

Don’t buy the lie that Obama’s leaving behind a healthy economy

After eight years of blaming America’s problems on George W.
Bush, the press that got the election wrong is rolling out a new line —
that President Obama is handing President-elect Donald Trump a booming
economy.

That takes some brass.

The jobless rate is down to 4.6 percent, and the growth rate is up
above 2 percent or even 3 percent, with housing prices getting back to
pre-recession levels. Stocks are soaring. So the idea seems to be that
Obama has solved the problem in the nick of time.

“Obama’s gift to Trump” is the headline on CNN. “Trump inherits
healthy economy” is the way the Financial Times is headlining the yarn.
Politico reckons that Trump is being handed an “Obama boom.”Plus, the Economist magazine is out this week with a cover featuring
George Washington’s image from the greenback. Except that he’s
shirtless, with his arms crossed and biceps bulging, and the headline
says “The mighty dollar.”

These geniuses remind me of Mark Twain trying to palm off the idea
that “Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.” If the economy is so
all-fired ducky, how come Americans just tossed out the party that’s
claiming credit for it?

The truth is that the Obama years have been among America’s worst for
the economy. His eight years will go down in history as the Great
Recession, even though for much, even most, of the span, we weren’t
technically in a recession.

It just felt that way. And no wonder. Obama’s is the only modern
presidency that failed to show a single year of growth above 3 percent, a
point Trump stressed during the campaign (and that was conceded even by
the website Politifact).

Plus, the Obama economy failed to prosper even though the Federal
Reserve had its pedal to the metal. Its quantitative easing, $2 trillion
balance-sheet expansion and zero-interest-rate policy all produced
zilch.

Except for pumping up Wall Street and producing what Trump calls a
“false economy.” The recent declines in the unemployment rate are due
less to the uptick in employed persons than to an increasing number of
persons leaving the labor force.

In a “true economy,” what people would boast about would be the
number of employed persons rising faster than the size of an expanding
workforce. In reality, the job participation rate is the lowest in
decades, as millions are too discouraged to seek a job.

And the recent record Dow Jones average? It’s pumped up by the
Federal Reserve. It’s nowhere near a record if the Dow is calculated in
the most traditional measure of value. The gold value of the Dow peaked
way back in 1999.

All this is why Bloomberg News has been reporting the “Rust Belt’s
transformation into the Trump Belt.” It cites this week new research on
“how bad things have become” in Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and
Wisconsin.

For older men in those states, Bloomberg reports, inflation-adjusted
pay is below the level in — wait for it — 1979. That’s two generations
lost. In those swing states, the idea that Obama is handing back a
booming economy will be seen there as an absurd boast.

Even if, in the last month or so, what economists call the “animal
spirits” of economic activity have begun to stir. That’s because of the
possibility that the credit already belongs to Trump.

Even though he’s not yet president. My own theory is that the
millions of minds that make up the American electorate knew way before
the pollsters that Trump was going to win this election.

They grasped that the Democrats’ high taxes and onerous regulation
were drawing to an end. They’ve already begun betting that The Donald,
no professional politician, will make good on his promises.

So when the New York Times runs out a headline, as it did Saturday,
saying that “Obama is handing a strong economy to his successor,” it’s
already behind on the story. Nice, but no cigar.

The economy is already Trump’s. And also his to lose, if he and the
Republican Congress fail to put through his promised strategic program —
tax cuts, deregulation, monetary reform and a “big beautiful door” for
legal immigration.

That’s the only way to turn the stirrings in the stagnant Obama
economy into the kind of boom that really would be — how might Twain put
it? — better than it sounds.